Open Thread

This is a week or so old, but I had not heard about it before. Some kid who seems disturbed is scary as hell. Also, he swims in a pervasive antisemitism. I don’t know how we deal with it, but letting him have guns seems like a bad idea.

I think the reason is quite clear. It’s the generation composed of YLB’s kids trying to take it these days.

The Big Fail: Why Bar Pass Rates Have Sunk To Record Lows

Because of legal education’s declining popularity, schools have needed to reach deeper into their applicant pools to fill out their classes, or they were forced to reduce the number of new students they enrolled. Many campuses employed a combination of both strategies.

The upshot is that incoming law students on the whole had lower LSAT scores and undergraduate grades than their predecessors—a trend that has only begun to reverse. (The number of law school applicants was up 7 percent last fall, marking the first significant increase in eight years.)

It’s because students are being treated like the fucking Evergreen State College snowflakes they have become.

Moreover, the evolving way that law is taught may explain why today’s law graduates are struggling more on the bar exam, said Testy, whose organization develops the LSAT. Professors now put less emphasis on memorizing rules, and have backed off on some of the high-pressure tactics—like the Socratic method—that historically dominated the classroom.

“The way we used to teach wasn’t as good for caring for the student, but it made sure you could take a closed-book exam,” she said. “You knew the doctrine. It was much more like a bar exam, in some ways.

Hence my reference to YLB’s kids; HA has no greater snowflake than she.

Having been driven out of most of the prosperous and economically vibrant regions of the country by the tyranny of demographics, the GOP is increasingly concentrated in dwindling redoubts where they lose ground daily and must fight for survival through voter purges. And without any ideology to speak of (much less to govern on) even these are now slipping away. Not even Idaho is interested in their “White Ethno-state” future.

NOI Research Group @NOIResearch 3,133 Scientists Back Ilhan Omar on 9/11

Deep skepticism exists about the gov’t version of 9/11. Many experts—architects & engineers—say the World Trade Center Towers were destroyed in a controlled demolition. Listen to @LouisFarrakhan#IStandWithIlhan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i_QdXKeSHI …

5:21 AM – Apr 16, 2019

Team Farrakhan is also skeptical about just what something some people did that day.

@38 Yeah, the hunt for the 18-year-old nutjob whose threats to attack Columbine High School prompted school shutdowns and mass fear in the Denver-area community is over.

Here’s how far she got: She was found dead in Littleton, Colorado, where Columbine is located. She purchased a shotgun immediately after arriving there. She ran around naked in a forest. Then she blew her brains out.

Anyone wanna argue it isn’t a problem that she so easily got a gun? The best thing you can say about this is that she used it on herself instead of a classroom full of school kids.

The GOP and NRA are full of shit. It’s not okay that she was able to buy a shotgun with no background check and no questions asked while police all over the country were looking for her.

Judges need authority to issue emergency orders allowing police to immediately disarm and take into custody people who pose a threat to themselves and others. Crazy people cross state lines, so these orders need to have a nationwide reach. That can be done with reciprocal agreements among the states through interstate compacts.

Of course, it doesn’t help them that they’re wrong on almost every issue. So yeah, they only want to debate people who agree with them. No scientists on coal and climate change, no economists on tax cuts for the super wealthy, and no AOC on anything.

Now, had it been just some random stray from the shelter I’d say they got the motherfucker dead to rights. But as this dog was an official K-9 animal assigned to him, I think there’s a credible argument to be made that he was fucking the dog “under color of authority” in his “official capacity”. -Discretionary? I’d say so. -Clearly established law or right? Doesn’t look like it. -Constitutional question? No way. I’d say that might just get him off (no pun intended – okay, yes intended), at least on the dog fucking charges. As to the kiddie porn, well this is Louisiana we’re talking about.

We don’t actually know if he’s old enough to vote. For all we know, he could be a kid simultaneously posting on HA and watching porn on a computer in his mom’s basement. He clearly has a lot of unscheduled time on his hands.

51 – He’s probably a poor millennial who can’t find a job because he borrowed heavily to get a useless “degree” and can’t understand why he’s not employable. So, he’s stuck in his mom’s basement for the foreseeable future. He would have done better learning a skilled trade rather than majoring in some silly-assed field like theater arts.

In testimony given during deps for the NRA’s spiraling litigation and potential bankruptcy, their head of fundraising admitted that in his estimation 80% of his staff brought in less money than their own compensation. And that’s not even accounting for the $1000 bar tabs and charter jets.

All I know is when I see one of those stickers on some dude’s auto glass I feel sorry for the sucker. And I steer clear assuming the stupid fuck is uninsured and probably drunk.

NRA’s audit committee highlighted one consultant contract giving the guy a guaranteed base of $30,000 per month regardless of hours worked. And they singled out his expense reports which were routinely paid without any supporting documentation. The year in question expensed in excess of $250,000. No receipts.

These guys make Michael Avenatti look like a Boy Scout. And they make NRA membership look like a giant “Kick Me” sign.

Demorat Pornstar Party Of Russia Hoax; Mueller Report Demorat Meltdown Preview–Thank you Demorats for being arrogant and stupid, and also for providing a great clown act. Enjoy this Demorat loon meltdown. ————————— NBC’s Chuck Todd: DOJ Briefing WH Lawyers on Mueller Report ‘Is Actual Collusion!’ Todd said, “I don’t know what you want to call it. Shamelessness, hubris, whatever it is, but the fact that had any Democrat tried anything like this, the impeachment hearings would be ––I mean, when Barack Obama on ’60 Minutes’ said, ‘You know, these emails… it doesn’t look like there’s much there there.’ ‘Oh, my God. He can’t speak about a criminal investigation.’ Where are all of these House Republicans now that were so up in arms about the president talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails, when what you have here, the attorney general briefing the President of the United States on a case that involves the President of the United States. What is the difference?” He continued, “This is actual collusion!” He added, “By the way in case you’re wondering what does collusion look like, it looks like the attorney general’s lawyers briefing the president before Congress or the public.”https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/04/17/nbcs-chuck-todd-doj-briefing-wh-lawyers-on-mueller-report-is-actual-collusion/

@66 Even pork sauce is scrambling to paint lipstick on this pig. This morning, Barr was forced to admit Mueller concluded that Trump committed ten (10) ***TEN*** “episodes” of obstruction but he, Barr, “disagreed” with Mueller because Trump lacked a “corrupt motive.” Whew. Every newspaper headline in America should be screaming,

“Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report did not exonerate President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice for Trump’s reactions to Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“A redacted version of the report, which Attorney General William Barr made public Thursday, describes 10 instances in which Trump may have obstructed justice by using his authority to interfere with the special counsel investigation. …

“Mueller also found extensive ties between members of the Trump campaign and Russian officials ….”

Here’s the bottom line:

“‘Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct,’ the report states. ‘The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgement. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.'”

I think that’s devastating for Trump. Mueller’s fact-finding shows he’s guilty on both counts, and Mueller’s statement about not prosecuting Trump makes it clear he deferred to Congress’ impeachment authority.

Wanting a perfectly legal investigation conducted strictly according to department regulation in accordance with statute to go away because it offends you is the definition of a corrupt motive insofar as the obstruction statute is concerned.

There needs to be no underlying crime in order to violate the criminal statute for obstruction. And for good reason. If parties, especially parties within government, were free to take direct action to thwart criminal investigations they don’t like, the people might never be able to know whether or not an underlying crime has ever occurred. In fact, at this point, we really can’t say if that is even true here.

Admitting that the White House took actions to interfere or thwart the investigation must, by definition call into question the reliability of the investigation itself. Barr knows this. Barr’s commentary has nothing to do with the law. It is political theater.

The least damning conclusion we can draw from all this is that Barr and those around him have concluded that the Trumps are too stupid and emotionally unhinged to form the requisite intent*. And so they are trying desperately to spin this tale in order to avoid making a humiliating admission he would never let stand.

72, I imagine there will be a lot of attention given to that declination decis by the members of the committee.

Uday has more subpoenas in his future. The question is whether or not that testimony will be public. Among Barr’s new duties will be fighting efforts of the committee to publicly examine the direct contacts between Uday (among others in the campaign) and the Russian spies.

Repukes are people that can draw the conclusion that Obama was a Muslim and born in Africa, just because his father was, and then know of all the ties and connections that The Hump has with Russia and think nothing of it.

Congratulations, you useless sack of shit. You are only 17 months behind the rest of the world.

Donald Trump Jr.✔ @DonaldJTrumpJr Here is the entire chain of messages with @wikileaks (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak. How ironic! 1/3

5:17 PM – Nov 13, 2017

Really, you stupid fuck, you might consider shutting the fuck up and digesting everything before your next spew.

Your spew was public knowledge in mid-November. Of 2017.

Lemme help you out with some more November news, Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit. Hillary lost. In November 2016. There, I saved you a spew.

President Bill Clinton was tried and acquitted in the Senate. Senator Hillary Clinton was never indicted for anything at all, despite years of investigations and referrals costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of GJ material illegally leaked and thousands of documents and transcripts also illegally leaked to smear her.

And she still got more votes than your President Obstruction.

I get it. You are stuck there now, defending an admitted crook until the bitter end. You started out finishing second. And it hasn’t gotten any better.

Based on what was released this morning, I think the House must impeach Trump. There’s no hope of removing him from office, because Senate Republicans won’t uphold their oaths to defend the Constitution, but impeaching him nevertheless fulfills an important purpose. Which is, “If you do X, you will be impeached.” It’s asserting checks and balances to prevent unbridled presidential abuse of power. That’s what Watergate was about, and that’s what this is about. Given what we know now, the Constitution will be weakened and damaged if Trump is allowed to go into the history books as a president who wasn’t impeached. Putting it in the simplest of terms, Trump claimed he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone” and get away with it. Impeaching him says, “No, you can’t.” Not impeaching him says, “You’re right, you can.” This is such a no-brainer that only an idiot like Doctor Dumbfuck will disagree.

@77 I think Bill Clinton committed the crime of perjury, but he didn’t exactly get away with it. He was impeached, so you can’t use that precedent as an excuse for not impeaching Trump. And he was disbarred.

On the other hand, Hillary was never charged, indicted, impeached, or disbarred. Keep in mind here that she was Secretary of State when Republicans controlled the impeachment apparatus. After spending vast sums of taxpayer money investigating her, Republicans couldn’t even convict her of a parking violation. She’s “guilty of crime” only in the fevered minds of gullible conspiracy nuts like you.

@76 I think it’s now obvious that Putin wanted Trump to “win” so he’d have a free hand in the Ukraine. And that Trump, his kids, and his campaign hacks were more than willing to make that trade. The only reason this isn’t treason as defined by law is because the people they were throwing under the bus were ethnic Ukrainians yearning for freedom from Russian domination instead of American citizens. It was nevertheless shameful, on a par with Chamberlain letting Hitler walk into Czechoslovakia. So much for American being a beacon of freedom to the world. Trump has turned that beacon into a flashing neon sign that reads, “Welcome to Trump Casino!”

I really don’t understand why Doctor Dumbfuck thinks a corrupt lying racist who lost the popular vote by millions of votes but pulled an electoral vote chestnut out of the fire by colluding with Putin is some sort of victory worth celebrating. I guess he’s just plain stupid. Or maybe the horse gave him syphilis after someone else infected it. He probably shouldn’t have rented out that horse for the purposes he did if he intended to “ride” it himself.

82, Deripaska just got his Rusal money released a couple of weeks ago. It took two years longer than he expected. But as soon as Barr was in place ready to work the smoke machine everything was set. Guess where his first big payoffs “investments” are going? In Kentucky with some dudes hooked up with Yertle.

Honestly, I think it’s kind of hilarious. Putin got almost all of what he wanted out of the deal. And the Trumps got absolutely nothing except lawyer’s bills, grand jury indictments, and tax audits for the rest of their lives. Looks like early on the Trumps and their supporters were being set up to be used. By all accounts this is pretty much how all of Trump’s “deals” work out.

Only this time he leaves the GOP holding the bag for him. They were warned. Still they persist.

Putting it in the simplest of terms, Trump claimed he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone” and get away with it. Impeaching him says, “No, you can’t.”

Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit, Trump was still in a primary race when he said this. Obama was president. You stupid fuck. Had the voters wanted to send a message to Trump for what he said, they could have elected Hillary. Instead voters elected to send a message to Hillary by electing Trump.

Your side chose an absolutely awful candidate and it cost you. Own it.

Instead voters elected to send a message to Hillary by electing Trump.

Historically nearly all the fifteen worst, most incompetent, and most politically unpopular Presidents never even came close to facing impeachment. Politics obviously has very little to do with it.

Nixon won all but one of the 50 states in an unprecedented landslide. Only to then be caught red-handed committing multiple serious felonies, be impeached, forced to resign, and only escape prosecution barely through a Republican Presidential blanket pardon – a Republican party tradition it would seem. He was a crook. And everyone who worked with him on his various crimes not pardoned by VP Gerry Ford was sent to prison. Prison stripes. Another Republican party tradition.

So just like Nixon, the voters (sort of) elected Donald J. Trump. And just like Nixon, now he’s been caught engaging in a bunch of criminal obstruction and tax fraud – also Republican traditions. And so, just like Nixon, he should face impeachment in the House. That’s our system. It’s the only system of criminal justice available to us where Presidents are concerned. It’s exactly what the Framers intended. And Roger pretty much has it absolutely right. And you, Teh Dumbfuck, pretty much come off as just another Republican mewling about politics to distract from criminality.

The Framers intended to place the President “above the law” – but not entirely. They intended for the elected members of the House to act in place of the normal instruments of law enforcement when a President is suspected of having broken the law. Looks like that’s where we are. And like it or not, it looks like that’s the conclusion most voters are coming to right now. For more on this, see your sock puppet at 77. You’ve admitted it yourself. Clinton was impeached for lying about a BJ.

What it boils down to is Trump isn’t guilty of obstruction because the people around him refused to follow his orders, and the Trump campaign isn’t guilty of collusion because they were too stupid to figure out how to cooperate with Russian spies.

@87 The voters didn’t elect Donald Trump. Hillary got 2.9 million more votes than he did. And that’s after Republicans suppressed millions of Democratic votes. Trump was elected, if you want to call it that, by an arbitrary system that gives tiny rural states an outsized say at the expense of heavily populated urban states. His views and “values,” if you want to call them that, represent only a minority of Americans, roughly the same proportion of population that supported Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany. And some of his policies are hard to distinguish from Hitler’s policies — family separations, locking children in cages, etc. I really don’t understand why anyone would brag about Trump being president. He’s a terrible person. His policies are terrible. If Trump supporters aren’t already pariahs, they ought to be. If I were a Trump fan (which I’m not), I’d keep quiet about it. That’s grounds for social ostracism.

House Majority @LeaderHoyer just told me : “Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point. Very frankly, there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgement,”

“Last summer, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) drew skepticism and ridicule from the media and Republicans when he claimed that Russian hackers had gained access to local election systems in his state. Eight months later, special counsel Robert Mueller’s report appears to back him up.”

And that’s not all. I can’t help wondering if the 2018 Florida senate election was stolen by Russian hackers. We already know it was stolen by GOP vote suppression, but alteration of the actual vote counting by agents of a hostile foreign government would take GOP election theft to a new and unprecedented level. The Mueller report confirms that Russian hackers planted malicious software in Florida county election computers. And if they did it in Florida, they probably did it in other states we don’t know about.

So why would the Russians be interested in a Florida senate race? For the same reason they want to pick our president. The GOP is the party of Putin now. They’re probably going to target our elections right down to dogcatcher, because they want to control the local dog pound, too.

@92 I called it @80! Doctor Dumbfuck is the big idiot I said he is! He sees nothing wrong with 10 attempts to obstruct justice, or Trump’s son engaged in subversive discussions with Russian agents. Or maybe his horse is a Russian horse, and has dirt on him.

“Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) shared information with the White House about the FBI’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report released Thursday.

“The revelation is a blow to the perception that Burr has been relatively free from bias while conducting his committee’s own investigation into Russia’s support for Donald Trump. That image has become especially important since the Republican who led a similar inquiry in the House shattered its credibility by scheming with the Trump administration and pushing a conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama.”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: So now we know both houses of the GOP-controlled Congress were involved in the collusion coverup. But then, we’ve known for a long time that the entire GOP, not just Trump, are Russian tools. However, it should be kept in mind Doctor Dumbfuck is so far removed from real power that he’s only a vicarious conspirator.

101, you can’t even copypasta right. Put down the Breitbart air duster and open a fucking window.

The fact is that there is witness testimony in the report about an effort on the part of President Obstruction, acting through his convicted bag-man Michael Cohen, to obtain what he thought might be embarrassing video tapes.

That adds credibility to Steele. I don’t think that word means what you think it means you want to call attention to that.

“The partner of a Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed woman who had called 911 to report a possible crime testified Thursday that he heard a thump on the officers’ squad car right before the shooting and feared a possible ambush.”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: Of all the flimsy excuses cops have used to kill human beings, this is one of the flimsiest. Anybody this jumpy shouldn’t be a cop. Maybe it’s time to disarm America’s police if they see human life as this cheap. When you’re in greater danger from cops than criminals you’ve got a problem.

98, During one summary paragraph (p. 370) Mueller describes McGahn receiving instructions from the President to alter his testimony about the President’s instructions to have Mueller fired. I wont have time to dig in and find McGahn’s testimony for a while.

But the summary is fairly explicit, though a bit tortured owing to the fact that Mueller had pre-determined that any such act of subornation would not even be investigated by his office. Trying unsuccessfully to destroy evidence is still obstruction. Trying unsuccessfully to compel false testimony from a subordinate is still witness tampering. But Mueller did not pursue evidence of potential crimes he could not indict.

I remember when Doctor Dumbfuck was gloating about the Mueller report. In football, the “celebration” penalty is only 15 yards. But it can get worse. If it turns out you didn’t actually score the touchdown, you’ll look like a real jackass.

113, I think whether or not it is a “win” all depends on how it is managed. Nadler is just getting started so it is difficult to say if he has talents equal to Peter Rodino.

Obviously the Clinton impeachment went very badly for the GOP. But it was a very cursory proceeding with no investigation of its own and hardly any hearings. The timing was rushed because of the election. And Hyde was a very compromised by his own history of corruption his own exploding sexual misconduct scandal, and exploding sexual misconduct scandals involving most of his caucus.

I think a good argument can be made that impeachment would be for the good of the country and the Presidency, even knowing that Republicans in the Senate dont care about such things. And that would be the only basis on which Nadler should proceed. I think if what the report indicates was going on is true it needs a public airing unconstrained by OLC policy restrictions.

Full and thorough public hearings accompnied by a parallel investigation in which all the participants are sworn and testify. At the end, if the evidence supports an innocent interpretation, they can always decline to impeach. But I suspect that would not be so. And if handled carefully and with the proper respect for the office both the President and Senate Republicans would come away diminished for what they have done to the country. Rightly so.

Everyone who can envision QoS McHillbilly making this @ 114 same argument

Full and thorough public hearings accompnied by a parallel investigation in which all the participants are sworn and testify. At the end, if the evidence supports an innocent interpretation, they can always decline to impeach.

Elizabeth Warren Has a Planhttps://theslot.jezebel.com/elizabeth-warren-has-a-plan-1834120275 “But in broad strokes, Sanders’s and Warren’s campaigns are more compatible than they are in competition—while Sanders spends much of his energy blowing up the idea that government can’t or shouldn’t directly provide people the benefits that they need, Warren is ready to sink the knife into the hearts of the institutions and systems that made government that way in the first place. Their campaigns may very well be, at least in a (hypothetical) healthy primary, in a kind of conversation with one another, pushing each forward, challenging blindspots, and forcing the other to speak to more issues. In the grand scheme of things, the fact that there are two candidates bringing forward progressive ideas that dramatically reform the role of government will only strengthen the 2020 field. And as we’ve seen before with the long tail of Sanders’s transformative 2016 candidacy, whether or not Warren wins while making her case to the American public may be entirely besides the point. ” I like what Elizabeth Warren wants to do. Massive Income Inequality is toxic to Democracy. On Daily Kos, she is one of the top 4 candidates.

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